Mozart on the verge of a nervous breakdown

Michael Volle, an extraordinary Don Giovanni, in front of the corpse of the Commander and near his own end in the new production by Vincent Huguet.MATTHIAS BAUS

Are there more perfect operas than

,

and

?

Hard to believe.

The three of them are interconnected in many ways, not only because they have two common fathers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Lorenzo da Ponte.

Apart from their shared Spanish setting (if we consider as such the Naples of

, still under Hispanic rule),

who premiered them in Vienna (in the case of

, just seven months after the first performance in Prague) were largely the same singers: the baritone Francesco Benucci, for example, gave life to Figaro, Leporello and Guglielmo, while Francesco Bussani sang the roles of Bartolo /Antonio, Commendatore/Masetto and Don Alfonso.

At the Festtage in Berlin, this same formula is repeated in part and we find identical singers in different roles, despite the fact that there is hardly any time to rest between the three performances, offered in a span of just four days.

For this reason, when one of them causes casualties (the coronavirus continues to wreak havoc) a small cataclysm occurs, because several gaps are suddenly opened.

Riccardo Fassi was going to sing the roles of Figaro and Leporello (following in the footsteps of Benucci,

therefore) and his absence had to be covered by two baritones at the last minute: Peter Kellner and Adam Palka, respectively.

With the first change we have probably won;

with the second, on the other hand, surely, we have gone for the worse.

Gyula Orendt (Count Almaviva) and Elsa Dreisig (Countess Almaviva) in the second act of 'Le nozze di Figaro'.Matthias Baus

Other singers, however, have been able to embody the double roles initially planned: Gyula Orendt (Guglielmo and Count Almaviva), Elsa Dreisig (Countess Almaviva and Donna Elvira), Marina Viotti (Dorabella and Cherubino), Bogdan Volkov (Ferrando and Don Ottavio ), Peter Rose (Bartolo and Commendatore) and a modern emulator of Francesco Bussani, the Croatian baritone David Oštrek (Antonio and Masetto).

Initially it was announced that Elsa Dreisig would also sing the character of Fiordiligi, of which she already demonstrated at the 2020 Salzburg Festival that she knows how to make an authentic creation, but if she already sing

and

In less than twenty-four hours it is a feat, having completed the trilogy would have elevated the Franco-Danish soprano even more as the undisputed queen of this year's Festtage, dedicated almost monographically to Mozart.

The king has been, of course, the ideologue and main architect of it, Daniel Barenboim, irreplaceable in the Berlin Staatsoper for thirty years now.

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Mozart's music rules in Berlin

There has also been, however, a leak that has meant that the efforts of these days have not looked as they should: the superficial staging and, in many moments, silly and insubstantial by Vincent Huguet.

Two of them,

and

, had premiered, amid severe capacity restrictions, in April and October of last year.

's

It just saw the light of day 2, almost as a prelude to the opening of the Festtage last Wednesday.

How can such a gift go to waste?

Whoever seeks unity in the triple proposal of the French director will only find it in the repeated use of some stage elements or props present in the three operas, more or less renovated or displaced.

Beyond, a black hole.

Mozart and Da Ponte did link them, with winks that must have been perceived by the spectators of the time.

A phrase that Basilio sings in the first act of

(“

) already contains the title of the opera that would close the trilogy four years later.

And at the dinner of the second act of

, the musicians play famous melodies from contemporary operas that Leporello is identified with while he eats:

by the Spanish Vicente Martín y Soler (with a libretto by Lorenzo da Ponte himself), and

, by Giuseppe Sarti (From a libretto by Carlo Goldoni, the mirror in which Da Ponte always looked at himself).

The third quote is the aria

which closes the first act of

, a self-quotation in line with what Mozart confessed from Prague to his friend Gottfried von Jacquin in a letter dated January 15, 1787: “Here nothing is talked about other than Figaro;

he does not play, blow, sing or whistle anything but Figaro;

no opera goes as many people as Figaro;

A great honor for me, without a doubt”.

How not to include in

a nod to this collective enthusiasm in the city that had commissioned his new opera?

And, as a reading of the libretto printed in Prague before the premiere reveals, all three quips were Mozart's own harvest, not Da Ponte's.

Elsa Dreisig (Countess Almaviva) during the performance of her aria 'Dove sono' in the third act of 'Le nozze di Figaro'.Matthias Baus

Therefore, Vincent Huguet had it easy, just as many before him (Jean-Pierre Ponnelle, Peter Sellars or Claus Guth, to cite almost antagonistic examples) have done, to provide conceptual unity to the three operas, even more when you have the rare privilege of being shown snapping at each other's heels in the same week.

However, after the mess of

Last Thursday, Huguet also crashed this weekend against the

of

and fell face down against the

of

.

It is impossible not only to find a unifying thread between the three operas, but even one or several ideas that serve as the conceptual foundation of each of them.

And the contrast between the musical wonders that have been heard these days in Berlin and the stage shivers that have accompanied them has been sadly eloquent for everyone.

Le nozze di Figaro

opens in a kitchen decorated in bright and contrasting colours, with an old cassette player on top of the fridge, which seems to refer to the aesthetics of many Pedro Almodóvar films.

The stuffed leopard, the countess's fuchsia-colored slippers or the large bed covered with a quilt that also imitates leopard skin all point in the same direction.

An old LP with his photo on the cover, or framed gold records on the walls make the Countess (the Rosina from

) a famous singer.

In fact, Elsa Dreisig begins the second act singing

in front of the curtain, dressed and with the gestural language of a

.

However, the translation has no more travel, it does not give any additional game, it does not produce any derivative.

And the collective gymnastics session on the kitchen table that we see at the end of the overture, followed by the measurements of the supposed bed (here, an exercise mat) by Figaro and Susanna, also remains in a simplistic grace, again in line with some occurrences of Almodóvar.

Ensemble scene at the end of the third act of 'Le nozze di Figaro' in the montage by Vincent Huguet.MATTHIAS BAUS

The psychology of the characters, on the other hand, is reflected in a flat scenic encephalogram, without ever delving into the reason for their actions and motivations.

The same thing happens in

, which turns the protagonist into a fashion photographer, who is supposed to take advantage of his profession to abuse his models, something that has happened in reality on more than one occasion, as recently recalled after the death of Patrick Demarchelier.

But, once again, an idea that could have had a run, remains just an anecdote, an accident, not something dramatically essential.

The little juice (we cannot consider the adolescent photos and selfies that Don Giovanni takes next to the coffin at the end of the Commendatore in the second act to be such) is limited to Zerlina's photo session and a video in which close-ups follow one another of female models during the Leporello catalog aria.

If anyone had harbored doubts about the distant (or close) shadow of Pedro Almodóvar, when he sings "

, the sequence of photos stops for several seconds on the faces of Rossy de Palma and Penélope Cruz: to the best of our knowledge, few images.

Of course, inconsistencies abound between what is sung and what is seen, here less forgivable than in productions articulated around a powerful driving idea that justifies or blurs them.

The photographic study of Don Giovanni ends up being so uncomfortable, for example, that in the end they end up taking all the elements that identify him as such without rhyme or reason.

The long pause after the opening scene of the first act of

It should also have been perfectly avoidable if little thought had been given to alternative decisions to avoid the stoppage.

But the greatest nonsense comes at the end of the second act, when a supposed secular court, a substitute for the divine judgment of Tirso or Da Ponte, presided over by the Commendatore (invisible in the cemetery scene, who is not such either, of course) condemns the libertine , forcibly strapped to a stretcher after being given an injection by the same forensic doctors who had examined the body of Donna Anna's father at the beginning of the opera.

The farewell silliness (such as Dorabella and Fiordiligi's identity swapping at the end of

or the Countess and Cherubino's running away before the curtain falls on

)

is that Don Giovanni reappears casually on one side of the stage with an ironic and cavalier attitude during the moralizing sextet, in theory to see how they open a box sent by him that contains the same cocktail that he had prepared at the party in the first act .

What does this contribute to what was seen previously or what does it leave us as the last image of the opera?

Any.

Again the void.

Don Giovanni (Michael Volle) and Zerlina (Serena Sáenz), watched closely by Donna Elvira (Elsa Dreisig). Matthias Baus

Luckily for Huguet, and for the public, the stage nonsense was cornered in the minds of the spectators before the display of musical strengths.

The main one, as had already happened in

was the extraordinary direction of Daniel Barenboim, who directed from memory Saturday and Sunday the almost four hours that the performances of

and

lasted .

If the approach of the Frenchman, because it is bland, is indistinguishable in both operas, the Argentine approached them in very different ways, above all because, from the very beginning of the overture, that powerful anticipation of the condemnation of Don Giovanni (also the introduction of the symphony of

heralds the

of Don Alfonso that gives the work its title), Barenboim opted for determinedly and systematically slow tempos to musically narrate with great detail, and with an amazing clarity in the textures and the various instrumental planes, what William Hogarth had called "the career of a libertine”.

Everything that in Huguet is vague, insipid, even ugly, bluntly clumsy in the collective or choral scenes, in the music that rises from the pit is precise, significant, attractive, congruent, unifying.

It was also significant that Barenboim changed the arrangement of the orchestra (with the woodwinds in the center, not to the right) in

, just as it was striking that, before he took the stage to receive that final reward he has stipulated as a rule its director, got up and previously thanked applause from the pit, with Barenboim still on the podium, something that had not happened neither in

nor in

.

The change of seats may be due in part to the fact that the three trombones have to be accommodated, of course, but there is also an intention to highlight the transcendental role played by the instruments in the development of the drama, not only because several of them rise even physically on stage in order to form the three orchestras or instrumental groups necessary to play simultaneously in the final party of the first act (one of Mozart's greatest prodigies), but because, even more than in their two companions in the trilogy, the instruments are partners in history.

Barenboim thereby confers to the opera all the depth and metaphysical weight that Huguet deprives it of.

The four endings (those of the second and fourth acts in

, and those of both acts of

) are a prodigy of constructive wisdom and fluidity in Barenboim's hands.

But when the orchestra is reduced to a minimum, the Argentine also knows how to weave a silk tapestry for his singers: it happened, for example, in

, one of the most brilliant jewels of these days, or in the duet

, in the one that showed off, as in each and every one of her interventions on Saturday and Sunday, the extraordinary Spanish oboist Cristina Gómez Godoy.

The Spanish soprano Serena Sáenz, greatly applauded as Zerlina at the Berlin Staatsoper.Matthias Baus

With movements that are even more concise and essential in the pit than in the concert hall —orchestra and conductor have been a common-law couple for many years—, Barenboim controls all the springs, showing himself especially attentive to the singers who have arrived as last-minute substitutes, he adjusts the volume of the orchestra to that of each of the voices and —very importantly— tells his own version of both arguments, which differs not a little from Huguet's.

He also enters into total symbiosis with the singers who best communicate with his

.

At the head, without a doubt, Elsa Dreisig, a countess and a Donna Elvira for history.

The soprano, unusually mature for her age, is shown to be extremely intelligent in all her decisions, which seem to be the perfect result of a sum of intuition and reflection.

If we add to this a beautiful voice in all its registers, a seamless technique, a stage talent greater than that of any of his colleagues and an undoubted personal charisma, the result is that he acts as a magnet for all eyes and raises several points the level of any show in which he participates.

Her extremely risky performance at the lowered curtain of the aforementioned cavatina

, which is her first appearance in

, was a supreme example of communion between orchestra and singer.

On Sunday, as Donna Elvira, and with hardly any time to rest, she repeated the excellence of the previous day, superlatively well, with virtually flawless arias and a stage performance that made the lady from Burgos the only character who managed to convey credibility to the Berlin public .

The stage is lit red for the final fall of Don Giovanni at the end of the opera's second act. Matthias Baus

In his role as Count Almaviva, Gyula Orendt again made as excellent an impression as the one left by his Guglielmo in

: without going to the almost unattainable extremes of Dreisig, he is a singer and an actor of many carats, solvent in all the facets.

The Slovakian Peter Kellner was a wonderful surprise as Figaro and everything suggests that he will make an important race, because he has more than enough conditions for it.

If they had not been informed on stage before the performance, no spectator would have imagined that it was a last-minute addition.

For his voice, of enormous quality, and for his stage self-confidence, he put the entire audience in his pocket.

The other substitute

, the Pole Adam Palka, had much more trouble drawing his Leporello.

With clear bass vocals, not baritone, his servant had little flight, almost no flexibility, and remarkable stage stiffness.

However, as he saved the role, we must be more than grateful to him and it is fair to wait for more suitable roles and performed with more preparation time to assess him more fairly.

Another Slovakian, Slávka Zámečníková, was an excellent Donna Anna, more accurate in the first act than in the second, where she had some trouble and her voice sounded very tense in the treble in

Still very young, if she gets rid of a certain stiffness on stage and refines her technique, she is also a singer to follow closely in her footsteps.

The Barcelonan Serena Sáenz has reaped a very fair just after offering a Zerlina full of freshness and charm.

Excellent in her solo performances and her duets, she is more difficult to hear in larger ensembles due to the low volume of her light soprano voice.

She if she had also sung Despina's character in

instead of Barbara Frittoli, we would have gained a lot, because it is another perfect role for her vocal typology and for her remarkable talents as an actress.

David Oštrek fulfilled his two characters very well (Antonio and Masetto), as did the veteran Peter Rose (Bartolo and the Commendatore).

Bogdan Volkov repeated the success of his Ferrando, giving away a very musical Don Ottavio and less stale and stretched than usual.

Regula Mühlemann's Susanna had the very difficult task of maintaining the level of the singer who premiered this show, Nadine Sierra, one of the best sopranos of her generation.

The contribution of the German, somewhat stiff at the beginning, went further, spurred on by her good understanding with Elsa Dreisig and Peter Kellner, while Marina Viotti's Cherubino again left mixed feelings,

just as it had happened with his Dorabella.

The Swiss is a good singer, but she needs to improve her expressiveness and communicativeness with the public.

She also didn't forget her predecessor, Emily d'Angelo.

It was very sad to see the unfortunate vocal condition of the once glorious singer Waltraud Meier, a Marcellina who inspired sadness and compassion more than anything else.

A fellow sufferer from her good times, Siegfried Jerusalem, was, on the other hand, a much more solvent Don Curzio, with a magnificent presence and hardly forcing the humor of his stutter more than necessary.

a Marcellina who inspired sadness and compassion more than anything else.

A fellow sufferer from his good times, Siegfried Jerusalem, was, on the other hand, a much more solvent Don Curzio, with a magnificent presence and hardly forcing more than necessary the humor of his stutter.

a Marcellina who inspired sadness and compassion more than anything else.

A fellow sufferer from his good times, Siegfried Jerusalem, was, on the other hand, a much more solvent Don Curzio, with a magnificent presence and hardly forcing more than necessary the humor of his stutter.

Michael Volle (Don Giovanni), Bogdan Volkov (Don Ottavio) and Slávka Zámečníková (Donna Anna) in the penultimate scene of the opera.Matthias Baus

remains for the end

: the great German baritone Michael Volle.

Can who is perhaps the best Hans Sachs of our time sing with stylistic and vocal solvency the diametrically opposite role of the

?

Probably not.

Volle goes through the usual troubles where the voice needs to move with greater agility (

, for example, where not a few notes were barely audible), but since he is a one-piece musician and has a natural stage talent, he flies over all difficulties and shortcomings with extreme skill.

However, he only lives up to his Wagnerian achievements in the final scene, where the role becomes decidedly dramatic and his voice can convey his best qualities.

At the scene of his (supposed) death, helped by an extremely inspired Barenboim (his entire conducting, from the first bar of the overture, seemed to have this precise moment permanently in his sights), he managed to move everyone, even though the waters will cool with their later and gratuitous reappearance.

Had Mozart been in Berlin these days, he would have heartily applauded the constant parade of musical marvels.

But the occurrences —or, better,

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